* Saying "I love you!" may have been the first choice. One common error posted by many people is "A" when selecting a choice, when they meant to select a completely different one.

* Saying "I love you!" may have been the first choice. One common error posted by many people is "A" when selecting a choice, when they meant to select a completely different one.

* Asking to "order everything in the menu" refers to how in shops, the randomness of the inputs may lead to Red asking to buy 99 items, even though he usually doesn't that much money to buy all and only wants one or two.

* Asking to "order everything in the menu" refers to how in shops, the randomness of the inputs may lead to Red asking to buy 99 items, even though he usually doesn't that much money to buy all and only wants one or two.

−

* "Being stuck" refers to the multiple move commands given. For example, falling off a ledge accidentally, cutting a tree (which is done by going into the menu and selecting a Pokemon who can cut and then selecting cut, all of this in front of said tree), an underground maze, and the Pokemon shop when between a girl and three walls have all been areas that Red have been stuck to progress, even though these should have been passed easily.

+

* "Being stuck" refers to the multiple move commands given. For example, falling off a ledge accidentally, cutting a tree (which is done by going into the menu and selecting a Pokemon who can cut and then selecting cut, all of this in front of said tree), an underground maze, and the Pokemon shop in many hilarous cases have all been areas that Red have been stuck to progress, even though these should have been passed easily.

* "AAAOOGAOGAG" refers to the weird and funny naming of the Pokemon. While the chat feeds commands, many of them are usually "A" and "Down", and as such pick letters from the far left of the name input.

* "AAAOOGAOGAG" refers to the weird and funny naming of the Pokemon. While the chat feeds commands, many of them are usually "A" and "Down", and as such pick letters from the far left of the name input.

* "Spiral" refers to the "Helix Fossil", a memetically popular item that has no uses until much later in the game. However, the Helix Fossil is usually the first or second item to be selected, and it met with the response "Red! You shouldn't be using that right now!". It has been considered memetically as a god by players.

* "Spiral" refers to the "Helix Fossil", a memetically popular item that has no uses until much later in the game. However, the Helix Fossil is usually the first or second item to be selected, and it met with the response "Red! You shouldn't be using that right now!". It has been considered memetically as a god by players.

Revision as of 06:09, 21 February 2014

Title text: I sympathize with the TPP protagonist because I, too, have progressed through a surprising number of stages of life despite spending entire days stuck against simple obstacles.

Explanation

The title text and the words spoken here refer to multiple aspects of Twitch Plays Pokemon (TPP). In TPP, tens of thousands of players (at one point, more than 110,000 players) control. What's unique is that the system uses fed commands from Twitch's own IRC and makes them valid commands in the game proper (such as "A", "B", "Start", etc.). The chat commands are all given very randomly due to the system used and to a delay in the Twitch system to the game itself. Here, "anarchy", the system where the most recent and logical input to be given to Red in TPP, is assumed to be used in the comic proper.

In order:

Saying "I love you!" may have been the first choice. One common error posted by many people is "A" when selecting a choice, when they meant to select a completely different one.

Asking to "order everything in the menu" refers to how in shops, the randomness of the inputs may lead to Red asking to buy 99 items, even though he usually doesn't that much money to buy all and only wants one or two.

"Being stuck" refers to the multiple move commands given. For example, falling off a ledge accidentally, cutting a tree (which is done by going into the menu and selecting a Pokemon who can cut and then selecting cut, all of this in front of said tree), an underground maze, and the Pokemon shop in many hilarous cases have all been areas that Red have been stuck to progress, even though these should have been passed easily.

"AAAOOGAOGAG" refers to the weird and funny naming of the Pokemon. While the chat feeds commands, many of them are usually "A" and "Down", and as such pick letters from the far left of the name input.

"Spiral" refers to the "Helix Fossil", a memetically popular item that has no uses until much later in the game. However, the Helix Fossil is usually the first or second item to be selected, and it met with the response "Red! You shouldn't be using that right now!". It has been considered memetically as a god by players.

"Saving" refers to the multiple times Red has accessed the menu and saved the game, despite having no use for it. The number of times the game has been saved it is practically countless due the sheer number of random commands.

Discussion

Should this be put into the Pokémon category? The comic has nothing to do with Pokémon itself, but the subject matter does. Blitzer (talk) 07:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Kill me for being a stupid nerd, but when I first read the title "First Date" I thought it was going to be a strip about the Unix Epoch. 173.245.53.201 10:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that was a very cool deducton, Monica. 173.245.53.138 15:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thats nothing. Ive actually nerd sniped myself with an xkcd comic before. thinking that the one about DNE referred to the concept of an undefined value (ie 1/0) BruceJohnJennerLawso (talk) 19:00, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

This is the first strip for a while that I had no idea what was going on. Thanks, explainxkcd! BTW I do think the Pokémon category is probably relevant enough. Mark Hurd (talk) 11:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah, ditto. Cheers for the explanation (not sure whether I'm happy or not that I'm so disassociated from apparently popular culture though). I actually thought "Twitch" was some sort of "random Twitter feed" thing, though, so (to some degree) I suppose I was also almost on the right track. 141.101.99.145 17:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Anyone else notice that between panels 2 and 3, Cueball drinks most of his wine? 141.101.99.145 17:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was intrigued by that! At least, his glass gets emptier — it seems plausible that Megan might have drunk or spilled it too. 108.162.218.23 18:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Seems like the amount of wine in his glass is constantly decreasing from panel 1-4. Also, the helix will guide us! 173.245.53.185 12:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

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